


Être Libre

by nirejseki, robininthelabyrinth (nirejseki)



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Abduction, Alternate Universe - Fae, ColdWave Week, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-28
Updated: 2018-05-30
Packaged: 2019-05-14 20:50:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14777016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nirejseki/pseuds/nirejseki, https://archiveofourown.org/users/nirejseki/pseuds/robininthelabyrinth
Summary: It was supposed to be a standard contract.The Fae kidnaps the human, the human is given everything he wants and nothing he needs, and the Fae is enriched.But nooooooooo, nothing in Len's life can be simple.(Mick Rory is such a tricky human!)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Coldwave Week 2018: Abduction/Kidnapping

It was _supposed_ to be a standard contract. 

Supposed to be, being, Len supposes, the key word. He's never been good at being what he's supposed to be. 

Neither, it seems, is the subject of this contract. 

"How hard can it be," he says, mimicking his sister's higher pitched tone to an exaggerated falsetto. "It's just a basic contract! Everyone does contracts. People have been doing it for literally thousands of years. The time will pass in barely a blink of an eye. You're not _nervous_ , are you? Not _you_ , a strong, attractive, big, tall -"

There's a muffled snort.

Quiet, but enough.

"Found you!" Len exclaims, leaping forward to yank aside a bush to glare at his target.

"Yeah, sure," Mick says from where he's lying on his back in the dirt. Utterly shameless, like he wasn't just hiding from Len a few seconds prior. "Tell me, did she really say 'tall'? That seems like an unnecessary bit of flattery."

"Compared to humans, I _am_ tall," Len points out. He's over six feet tall, after all.

"True," Mick agrees. "But I wasn't comparing you to humans, now was I?"

Len scowls at him. It's not his fault that his species tends more towards seven or eight feet in height.

Even _Lisa_ is a perfectly normal seven and a half feet of gorgeous woman. 

(It's not _Len's_ fault that he gave her all his food growing up, stunting his growth in the process...)

"Besides, I'm taller than you," Mick says. "And I _am_ human."

"I didn't need the reminder," Len tells him, giving up and slouching down into a seat next to Mick. There's clearly no reasoning with the guy. "Why'd you run away _this_ time? You know your half of the contract is to stay put."

"And as you're so quick to remind me, humans are creatures of chaos capable of breaking contracts," Mick says dryly. "Unlike you lot, all rules and order above all else. You don't eat, sleep, or have fun without rules. You even kidnapped me according to the rules!"

"I'm a creature of _order_ , what do you want me to do? Not be what I am?"

"You even left in a loophole where I could get free of our contract if I could escape," Mick continues, looking aggravated. "And you _told me about it_."

"Of course I did! You're my counterpart, you have the right to be informed!" Len protests, even though he knows that humans are not afforded any rights under the Law. According to the Law, humans are the subject of contracts, not counterparties, not _real_ counterparties. 

Len's never liked that. 

A contract between two parties ought to be between counterparties, fair and equal, whatever the Law currently says.

"And anyway, that doesn't change the fact that you tried to run again," Len adds. "In the middle of a party, too."

He didn't actually object to leaving the party early, he hates these sorts of parties - he by and large hates other people, actually - but there's having a good excuse to miss the party and then there's having to track Mick down again - and again - and _again_ –

Mick huffs. "Maybe I wanted some time to myself, ever think about that?"

"But you call for me to come back to the demesne any time I go away," Len says, utterly at a loss. "I don't know what you _want_."

Mick looks at Len pityingly. "Buddy," he says dryly. "You're not supposed to care about what I want."

Len groans and flops back on the earth next to Mick.

"You're really bad at this whole abduction business," Mick observes. "Like, really bad. I thought kidnapping humans is what you Othersiders _do_ for fun."

"Status," Len corrects Mick. "We do it for status. Having humans around helps us think more clearly."

The problem with being a creature made from order is that you fall far too easily into stale ruts, repeating the same thing over and over again, and you can't get yourself out. Not without a spark of chaos to help inspire you to, anyway. 

That's why they took humans. As faelings they offered gifts in trade, as jinn they pretended servitude, as dragons they kidnapped by force - but the end goal was always the same, to use the human to further their own goals.

Len never liked it. 

Oh, he likes rules as much as the next Sider, as humans called them: he liked making them, he liked twisting them, he adored the challenge of maneuvering around them.

But he hated what they did to humans, draining them of inspiration and will and spark until they were greyed-out shells that were so empty they actually thought they'd made it out intact or even ahead of the game.

Johnny with a violin of gold won and his ability to compose lost.

Tam Lin with his bride to be, going mad over his inability to write another poem.

Orpheus, who didn't understand why his music no longer had that extra oomph that won him all of his acclaim.

Len hated it.

It was addictive, for one thing; cruelty summoned cruelty, but each human that was taken would provide less and less of a high, and in time the Sider doing the taking would deteriorate into mess good only to be put down. But that wasn't really the reason - that sort of thing wouldn't happen for centuries, if you were even slightly careful. 

No, Len'd rather his inspiration come from himself, however tired it made him; that way his victory was his own, rather than stolen from the soul of a broken toy.

But he was in a tricky situation in the centuries-long life-or-death match he was playing against his Father, and he needed to demonstrate to the East Tower Clade that he had the _ability_ to enthrall a human into a contract, not to mention a lack of disdain for those Siders that did use it.

A disdain that Len did, in fact, feel. 

But Lisa convinced him that he needed their alliance to pull off his next maneuver, one that would bring him closer to the victory she longed for as much as he, and he'd begrudgingly agreed. 

He'd taken the easiest route: he came across a child at a vulnerable moment, their family dead in an inferno they themselves had unintentionally started, and he offered them a contract too good to be true - safety, pleasures, the whole rot. 

Mick accepted, of course, because Len _is_ good at what he does. Even this, when he puts his mind to it. 

That should've been the end of it: children made for fantastic inspiration, but they burned out fast, and Len would have been free of his obligation within a few short years –

If he'd managed to stick to it, anyway.

He'd had Mick a week, a week of giving him all the food, games, and other innocent joys the boy had ever wanted, and then at the end of the week it was time to take Len's due portion from Mick's soul and Len had balked like the coward he is.

He couldn't.

Not a _child_. 

(Not after what his Father did to him, and to Lisa, when they themselves were only children, and never mind that this was a human child, a human, someone Len shouldn't even care about.)

He couldn't do it.

He'd amended the terms of their contract to give Mick an out, a reprieve of two score years if Mick could do some middling task for him, and he'd dumped him back in the human world for a few decades. 

He'd kept him safe from afar, ensured no one interfered with his counterpart, his _property_ , but tried otherwise to leave him his privacy. 

And when the time was up, well.

Then Len had come to him as a dragon of fire and carried him off back to the Underhill because what _else_ could he do? He'd signed a contract with Mick, and he's a creature of order. 

Unlike Mick, he has to obey a contract.

But it isn't any _better_ now that Mick was an adult, either, because Mick isn't vacant-eyed with grief anymore, but charming, and inventive, and crude, and _different_. New. 

Human.

A thousand different creatures contained in a single soul: the babe, the child, the teenager, the young adult, older but not necessarily wiser...

A creature born of chaos, as much in love with the fairytale-order offered by the Siders as the Siders were in love with them.

Len hasn't laid a goddamn finger on Mick.

He _can't_.

But what can he do? He can't let him out of the contract. He can't break a contract. 

To be specific, _he_ can’t break a contract.

All he can do is hint at the loopholes and make Mick as comfortable as he can until he figures out how to get out via one of those loopholes.

But he can't do that if Mick keeps trying to escape in a way that makes Len have to chase after him. 

"You were supposed to be awful," Mick says suddenly.

"I am," Len objects automatically, because he's unSeelie, damnit. Humans perceived his chosen clan as violent and dark rather than wise and peaceful and light - Len preferred it that way, found it less hypocritical to let the humans see a little of what they were really up against. Lisa, though he loved her, was Seelie: golden of hair, golden of smile, and yet she and her lover, the dark-haired, dark-eyed Cynthia, drew upon human souls with a facility and ease he would never have. "What do you mean by that, anyway?"

"You put me back without making me forget anything, you know," Mick says, turning to look at Len. "Was that on purpose, or accidental? Answer me honestly."

"I didn't want to pervert your mind," Len says, and he is being honest. "I know we're supposed to dull what you know of the Hill, but really, what are you going to do even if you know? Bring cannons?"

"Nukes, maybe," Mick says.

"Bright as flame," Len says, "but just as useless. We're creatures of order - do you really think that we can't put some atoms back in their proper order just because you've gone ahead and split them?"

Mick grunts, acknowledging the point. "We could build better weapons," he points out. 

"You could," Len agrees. "Honestly, you probably _should_ , so as to better defend yourself as a species. Get more respect from the Othersiders that way. But I don't know what those weapons would look like."

Mick sighs. "See, that's what bugs me," he complains. "You want us to protect ourselves! You don't want to force-feed on me! You _want_ me to be happy!"

He seems upset.

"I don't understand humans," Len says plaintively. It's not the first time he's said that. Not even the first time to Mick this week, even. "Would it be better if I were cruel?"

"Yes!"

"But _why_? I don't want to be cruel! I just want -" Len cuts himself off.

Mick rolls over, suddenly interested. "What do you want?"

Len shakes his head.

"No, really," Mick persists. "I know you made a contract with me because you wanted to get an alliance to win that fight against your dad. But once that's done - what do you _want_?"

"I wish I knew," Len replies sadly. "I've always been - dissatisfied."

"You know _something_ , o Thief For Hire."

Len scowls at Mick. He was too perceptive, even if he did have too much fun with Len's chosen profession once Len had explained what he did to fill his days. It was a perfectly respectable profession, one of daring and creativity and skill, thank you very much. 

"What do you want?" Mick asks, his eyes oddly compelling. "Tell me."

Len gives in, as he always gives in. "I want to be free."

He doesn't even know what he means by that, when he says it, just knows that he wants it like he's never wanted anything else.

But Mick seems to understand.

He smiles.

"I was hoping you'd say that."

When the sky rips open and the human invasion-ship arrives to rescue Mick, to take him away, to win him free of his contract per the loopholes traditionally included, Len's almost not even surprised.

He _is_ surprised when Mick convinces his rescue team - they call themselves the Legends, many of them escaped from the Hill themselves and now operating through the in-between spaces of the world to save more of their kind - to take Len with them when they flee the Hill.

They put him in the brig, of course. 

Len's okay with that. He's never been in a spaceship before, so it's a brand new experience - chaotic and inspiring. 

He picks and re-locks the lock three times before finally deciding it was time to go exploring.

Mick is arguing with the rest of the crew on the bridge -

"- can't just _keep_ him! He's an Othersider!"

"He wants to be free! How does that make him different from the usual people we rescue?!"

"Because he's an Othersider! A kidnapper, not a kidnappee!"

"Actually," the tall smiling man says, "I think Mick really is his first kidnapping - I was looking through the records while we were visiting last time, and his reputation -"

"Am I the _only_ person who remembers the fact that this guy is - an - Othersider?!"

"Don't be racist, Sara -"

Len decides to keep going in his exploration, at this argument doesn't seem likely to finish anytime soon. There's a kitchen, which confuses him for a few moments until he remembers that humans generally construct their own food out of raw ingredients, lacking as they do the ability to simply siphon nutrients out of the relevant objects; a number of bedrooms, all personalized in intriguingly different fashions, of which he can only recognize one as Mick's characteristic messiness; and a gun room, which is hidden behind several walls.

"You shouldn't be in here, you know," the ship's AI informs him.

"I'm just looking around," Len protests. "I'm not doing anything harmful."

"I suspect the crew has a different interpretation of harmful than you do," it says wryly. "For instance, your ability to exit your cell at will, given that it's supposed to be immune to your species' particular powers."

"It is," Len says. "Very impressive. I just picked the lock, that's all."

"I saw," the AI says. "You did it very quickly and quietly and sneakily."

"Sneakily? Don't be ridiculous," Len says. "I'm a thief. If I was being sneaky, you wouldn't have seen me."

"Are you suggesting that your escape was because of your profession rather than your species?"

"Exactly. Why'd they bring me on, anyway? Do you know?"

"Better question," a voice says from behind Len, causing him to turn. "Why did you agree to come?"

It's the ship's captain: a woman, blonde, wearing white and carrying staves with the air of someone who knew how to use them.

"Mick said to," Len explains. 

She looks at him for a long moment, clearly expecting more. Her eyebrows arch up when she realizes that's it. "I didn't realize it was so easy to abduct one of your kind."

"It probably isn't," Len says with a shrug. "But, well, he said I should, and I've never been on a spaceship before, and since my previous plan failed, there's no reason not to try something new."

"Your previous plan," the captain says slowly. "The one involving sucking the life out of Mick, yeah?"

"Close enough," Len says. For some human, the difference between inspiration and life was a pretty narrow line. "It was meant to demonstrate that I could fit in with the Tower Clade gentry, to get them on my side, but I couldn't do it - either during his childhood or his adulthood."

"Yeah, we noticed that," she says. "We had Gideon check on him, and he's not been drained at all."

"I wouldn't have liked to see him grey," Len says. He had nightmares about it, sometimes, vivid ones where he could see himself achieving the pinnacle of all his dreams - his Father gone and locked away - but only at the cost of Mick crushed beneath his feet. It was never worth it. "I like Mick."

"If you didn't like doing it, why did you want to join this - clade?"

"The Tower Clade. And they would have helped me gain advantage against my Father."

She frowns. "Your father?"

Len nods. "He is no longer stronger than me such that he can obtain compliance by force, so he comes up with other ways to get it, like threatening my sister."

"You - Okay. Huh. I didn't know Othersiders could have abusive dads."

"Anyone can," Len says. "It's the penalty paid for allowing anyone who wants to to reproduce."

"...right. Point. Okay. Are you planning on betraying us?"

"To whom?"

"I don't know, anyone. Other Othersiders."

"I don't particularly care about you lot," Len says honestly. "But if Mick doesn't want me to, I won't."

The captain doesn't look entirely pleased with that answer, but she shrugs and accepts it. "Welcome aboard, then, I guess," she says. "You'll have to earn your keep."

"I can do that," Len says. "I'm a Thief for Hire."

"What, really? Okay. Well, we don't do much thieving - rescue missions are more our style."

"People can be stolen," Len points out. "Memories. Lives. Kneecaps. I'm a very good thief, when I'm hired to be."

The captain purses her lips. "And what does it take to hire you?"

"I take many forms of trade -" Len begins his usual sales pitch, but there's cough at the door.

It's Mick.

Len turns to him with a smile.

"You're going to offer a reasonable trade," Mick instructs. Len can't blame him for doubting; he's overheard some of Len's negotiations.

"Very well," Len agrees, feeling strangely mellow. Happy, even. Is he happy? It's been such a long time.

He likes this, whatever this is. Being abducted by humans. He likes it.

"What's your price, then?" Mick asks.

"A kiss from you," Len says on impulse. "One per theft."

Mick flushes red.

The captain starts to laugh. "Oh, it's like _that_ , is it?"

"It is not!" Mick exclaims.

"It isn't?" Len asks with a frown.

"Okay, maybe it kind of is - but it wasn't - not back where we were -"

"I wouldn't take advantage of you when you were in my power," Len says. "But you've escaped your contract, so now you're an equal again - as much as humans can be, anyway, the Law is really terrible - and that means I can try to lure you into a new contract."

The captain's laughter dies. "Another draining contract?"

"No," Len says patiently. It's not her fault - she probably has limited experience with Othersider contracts. "A marriage."

"Whoa, there," Mick says. "Hold your damn horses. _Marriage_?!"

"It's the final goal," Len assures him. "I intend to spend months and months in extended negotiations convincing you of what a good idea it is."

"He's asking you out," the captain translates. "To potentially start a serious relationship."

"But," Mick says, but for all his verbal objections coming out of his mouth, his body language is quite positive. Len feels like he has reasonable basis for hope. "He's an Othersider!"

"May you have more luck with that argument than I did," the captain says wryly. "If he's good enough to travel with, then he's good enough all around. If you want to date him, don't let us stop you."

Mick is silent for a long moment.

"Well?" Len asks.

"Oh, all right," Mick says. "But no tricks! And we're going to negotiate you a better price than kisses, because I don't want to be limited!"

Len's never been happier to be abducted.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Coldwave Week 2018: Jealous/Protection

In the nine months they've been with the Legends - the nine months they've been in the Legends together, that is, because Mick's been a member of the group for nearly five years running before that - Mick's gotten to see a lot of different emotions on Len's face.

He never wants to see this one again.

Bone-deep terror. Pain. Resignation.

Submission.

And all in the face of Len's Father. 

Now, Mick's known about the Othersiders all his life, courtesy of Len's utterly inept kidnapping and attack of (who'd have thought it) conscience. He knows their many forms: the tall gentlemen, the glowing ladies, the servile jinn, the leering devils, the whirlwinds of light, and - Mick's personal favorite - the roaring dragon.

Len's Father manifests instead as a spider made of darkness, sticky-sweet webs stinking of rot and decay, and he comes to their ship and demands that Len come with him, that Len do as he say, that Len return to slavery.

And Len is going to agree.

Len's explained enough that Mick knows what's going on: Len's Father used up enough of Len's services to nullify the contract of filial loyalty between them, but he carefully refused to demand too much from Lisa, and that meant he could still command her, force her to do the darkest things, the things Len will never let her do. Instead, he comes to Len, who loves her, and makes Len do his bidding rather than her, backed with threats that he would make her do far worse - threats that Len believes. 

And Len agrees, every time.

But not this time.

Not if Mick has anything to say about it.

The Othersiders are all but all-powerful in their own realm, but outside of it, they are bound by certain weaknesses inherent in the form they have selected. 

A spider of darkness, therefore, is weak against the scalding light.

Mick picks up a flamethrower - one of Ray and Cisco's design, designed to work against even the Othersiders - and charges into the fray.

"You get your filthy claws off of him!" he bellows.

Len's Father hisses and turns upon him, and Len cries out in terror, and suddenly Mick's world is consumed in empty blackness.

He's still on his feet, though. Still has his gun.

"Who are you, human," Len's Father's voice echoes in the darkness, spitting the words out, filled with spite, "to interfere in a contract you have no part of?"

"I'm human," Mick snaps. "Faithless and untrue, remember? I'm not bound by your contracts same way you lot are."

"That does not give you the right to interfere," Len's Father says, and his voice has gone smug in a way Mick doesn't like. "You have no claim, no right, where I am his Father. You have no tie to him, and I will claim your head as my price for your interference, and I will have two swords to dangle over his head. He will serve me forever and a day, and belong to me!"

Mick snarls, enraged beyond reason at the thought of it. "He'll do no such thing, you bastard! He's _mine_!"

"You have no claim to him! No contract -"

"You bet I do, you asshole!" Mick shouts back. "He's made me an offer of marriage, and I plan to accept it, and that's contract enough for you, ain't it?"

The darkness strums in something Mick thinks might be worry. "He has made an offer," Len's Father snarls back, his voice suddenly more aggressive, less arrogant. Bravado. Mick's on the right track here. "But you only _plan_ to accept -"

"No you don't, you bastard," Mick says. "I was planning on accepting this evening, making a counteroffer of my own, but I'll accept it now with gladness if it means I can fight you!"

"You would bind yourself to an Othersider for forever and a day, on his terms?" Len's Father challenges. The panic in his voice is clear - interesting. Mick wasn't really expecting _panic_ to be the reaction here - at most, he thought that he'd be able to push back against Len's Father's awful words. There's more here than meets the eye. "You fool; he will drain you -"

"He won't take what I'm not willing to give," Mick says, rolling his eyes. Honestly, if Len wouldn't do it when he didn't know Mick, he's certainly not going to do it now - Len's a great planner, yes, but he's not exactly known for his infinite patience. No long-term thinking, that one; he's too spontaneous. One of those quirks that make him seem more like a human than a proper Othersider. Mick likes that about him. Still, Len's Father's reaction, his mis-plays, they're caused by some sort of fear; Mick's not going to let that go. He raises his voice. "I accept the contract, Len! Accepted, signed, whatever you like."

Len's Father snarls.

"Anyway," Mick asks, "now that that's done with, don't that mean that I was contracting with him first, and _you_ the one interfering?"

"No!" Len's Father howls, and he's definitely scared. "I am his Father - my claim precedes -"

"I threw off your contract," Len's voice says. He's standing beside Mick in the darkness, all of a sudden, and his eyes are glowing. "You have been operating under a contract with my sister, and using that to create one-time contracts with me; you are my counterpart only, and not even that, yet. I hadn't agreed to this newest contract."

"But -"

"You interfered in my contract," Len says. "You attacked my counterpart in a marriage contract, right in the middle of ongoing negotiations, and that means you _interfered_. My counterpart here has the right of damages."

"He's human, he _can't_ -"

"He's accepted my contract," Len says, and his voice is almost gleeful. "A marriage, no less. Did you really think I wouldn't grant him Standing?"

"No!"

"What's that mean?" Mick asks, stepping in front of Len, still seeking to protection. "Standing, damages?"

"Standing grants you the right to act as a counterpart under the Law," Len says. He'd already explained that humans had no right under Othersider Law and how much he didn't like that fact; Mick supposes it's no surprise he added a clause into their contract fixing it. Hopefully that's all he fixed - Mick's a bit worried about having accidentally signed up for immortality, but he guesses it's too late now. "And damages -"

Len smiles.

Mick arches his eyebrows. This is going to be good.

"The right to demand damages," Len says with relish, "means you can punish he who interferes in your contract negotiations to the fullest measure you wish, and his right to defend himself restricted."

Mick clicks on the gun and smiles a nasty smile, an arsonist's smile. That's even better than he thought it would be. "So if I want him to never come near you again, not for forever and a day...?"

"I think," Len says, and his voice is pleased as anything, "that we can see to that."

Mick flicks on his gun.

Len's Father screams.

Len turns into Mick's second favorite form, a dragon with a tongue of fire - his first favorite is Len's natural form, of course, but just barely - and joins in.

When it's over, the darkness banished, he turns to look at Mick.

"Tell me you meant it," he demands, eyes shining. "Tell me you accepted my offer in truth, and not merely to defeat him - you mentioned you'd planned to counteroffer - we can find a way to incorporate those terms, I swear, if only you say yes -"

"Yes," Mick says, and Len stops, utterly speechless. That hasn't happened once in nine months - who knew Othersiders could be such chatterboxes? "I meant it. I accept your offer. I accept your marriage contract." He grins crookedly. "I do."

"You're supposed to wait till I ask you the question, you know," Sara says, coming up from behind them. "I'm the Captain, remember? I'm the one who's got authority to marry you."

Len is beaming, and his eyes are only for Mick. "Yes, do," he says. "As quick as possible, do. I want this signed and sealed human-terms as well as contract."

They'd been negotiating for months, him and Mick - jokingly on Mick's part at first, then more seriously. Len took it seriously all the way through: he was a Thief for Hire, who could steal only what he was hired for, and he worried endlessly about stealing Mick's heart without proper contractual protection for it, at least until Mick grumpily told him that his heart was something he planned to give as a gift rather than allow it to be taken. 

That'd been a relief to Len.

Such a strange Othersider, Len was, but Mick wouldn't have him any other way.

The contract they'd made between them was something of an oddity in the Sider world, too: it had escape clauses that could be used by either Len or Mick, at will. 

And it was something Mick was proud to sign onto.

The only counteroffer he'd been planning, after all, was in the ring-box in his pocket.

He pulls it out now and offers it to Len.

"You _were_ going to say yes," Len marvels. "You were!"

"I told you," Mick says. "My heart's a gift, and I give it to you freely."

"My heart is free to take," Len says. "And you've stolen it."

Mick reels him in for a quick kiss - "I now pronounce you man and dragon," Sara says from beside him. "Seriously, Len, turn back already; just because Mick doesn't care what form you take doesn't mean we don't." - and slips the ring on Len's finger, once it's regular-sized again. 

Neither of them are much for public displays of affection, but they can't stop smiling at each other.

"Oh," Len says suddenly. "This means you can meet my sister! Now that you've got Standing, she can't try to kill you for kidnapping me!"

...oh boy.


End file.
